Three Days
by DiamondNinja914
Summary: Immediately follows the end of book six. First person from Laura, as she gives her opinion on driving, Franz, and Shelby's diary.
1. Chapter 1: Day One

The lights in the accommodation block dimmed, as a warning that illumination would cease in five minutes. Everyone began to stand up, stretch, and say their "good night"s to their friends. As we got up, I looked worriedly at Otto. He'd just passed the three day mark since Lucy. And I don't mean her death. She'd had one day of happiness, then boom, headshot. Well, backshot.

"Night, everybody," I said. "I'd rather not be here when everyone is tripping over each other in pitch dark. Happened to me once, and... yeah," I said, refraining from mentioning how much hair I'd lost, how many times I'd been touched by hands that weren't mine.

"Night, Laura."

"Yeah, bye," I said.

"See ya."

"Lock me out again and I'll murder you."

"Sure, Shel. Why don't I just leave the door wide open so everyone can waltz in?"

"Night, Laura."

"Night, Franz."

"I am telling you, my name is Silent Death."

"Fine, then."

I stumbled towards the edge of the room, looking back only after I'd reached the glass elevator. He was still staring at the ceiling. Otto hadn't said anything in at least two hours, including just now. I guessed he'd be like that for awhile, despite what I'd told him.

I watched her die, too, I thought. I was there when she stepped in front of you. I just wasn't fast enough, and she got there first. Of course, no one would ever know.

We were back to the same team we'd had at the beginning of our time here. I stepped inside the room and plopped down on my bed, fighting that feeling again. The other secret I'd kept about Lucy's death. That inside, I would've it had happened, before it did. She'd been a great friend, but that didn't stop me from hating her, in the darkest part of my heart, the part I kept from myself. But that feeling had all but disappeared when she took the bullet.

_"... and in case you hadn't noticed, your boyfriend's missing, too."_

_ "He's not my boyfriend!"_

I'd blushed.

In the face of Block and Tackle. About a stupid comment, one that meant nothing. But even that had dug up the worst of the pain.

That's when I remembered. If it weren't for Lucy, I wouldn't have made it out of that encounter before the next class.

If it weren't for Lucy, I'd be dead.

Multiple times, in multiple encounters with guards, assassins, mindless thugs.

I told myself the lie I'd come up with for my near-relief at Lucy's death. That she represented everything we didn't. We used anything and everything we had to do the best job we could. She'd avoided using her abilities at all costs. We had to work for every little thing we got in life. She could've opened her mouth at any time, and she could be given the world. Even Otto got the terrible nosebleeds from using his abilities, and they'd put him in a coma twice.

Shelby entered the room, smiling as usual. The recent time she'd been spending with Wing seemed to almost cancel out, emotionally, with the fact that they were one member short. I really was happy for her. She'd been stupid enough to keep her journal on her computer, thinking that not telling me about the fact that she had one would been able to keep me out. In fact, three years ago, when I'd had to use her computer for codebreaking purposes, I'd noticed the little shortcut on her desktop and had been reading her journal ever since. Some of the stuff in there had been pretty nasty, and I sensed that her recent displays of even more teenage-hormonal behavior would force me to stop with the diary spying, unless I really _wanted_ to lose my lunch.

Which I didn't. I loved food. Something I guessed Franz had picked up on, because he'd been talking to me more and more lately. About food. What kind of foods _I_ liked. Really? You like that? So do I. That's my favorite, he'd say, even if I'd been talking about salad.

I guessed the H in HIVE no longer stood for "Higher."

I went to sleep, comforted by the fact that we had Tech first thing in the morning. Then more Driving (a perfect opportunity to get on everyone's nerves even more).

I had been a little worried, for awhile, that we'd leave the island at eighteen not knowing how to start a car. Then, a few months ago, we'd been pleasantly surprised one morning during Tactical Ed. The surprise had only been pleasant until we had to ride with Nigel at the wheel. He was too short to see over the dashboard, and the white van had crashed into a holographic building, causing us to stop too quickly. It was painful.

The next morning, I dashed to the shower. Shelby still had a habit of hogging the bathroom, and I actually wanted to make it to class today.

In Tech, I saw Otto pause at the door, unsure of where to sit.

"Hey!" I called. He looked over. "Come sit over here." He obliged, looking at me with a somewhat quizzical expression. "The Professor said you shouldn't be working with machinery by yourself for the next few days." A lie, but one that made at least a little bit of sense.

"Ah, Mr. Malpense, I see you have returned to your usual seat today," said Professor Pike. Crap, I thought, as my story got flushed down the metaphysical toilet. "In that case, you two may move up if you like," he mentioned to the table behind Otto's temporary former seat.

I watched as the computerized name tags on the desk changed from MALPENSE, O. and DEXTER, L. to FANCHU, W. and TRINITY, S.

At first, I did most of the work, but halfway through the class, Otto broke from his trance and began to actually participate. Our truly awesome gun got taken by the Professor and placed into a box labeled "TO BE DELIVERED TO THE MEGALODON".

In T.E., now called Driver's Ed, we broke up into our groups and sat on the bleachers, waiting for further instructions. I reached for my water bottle, but I realized that I'd forgotten to fill it this morning. I reached over and tapped Shelby on the shoulder.

"Can I borrow some of your water?" I asked, not brave enough to sneak it from the Wraith.

"Sure," she replied, "at your own risk." I looked at her quizzically. "Backwash," she explained.

Odd, I thought. I used her water all the time. I was about to tell her that if she didn't want me to drink it, she could just say so, but then I saw Wing's expression, which spoke volumes. I handed her the water back and sat with Otto.

I am not reading her freaking diary.

"I have a question," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you want to work with Shelby in Tech a few days ago?"

I got up and sat with Nigel and Franz.

Franz was boasting about his victory over Wing and Shelby the day before, so I went back to Otto, who was staring off into space again. Well, staring at the list of groups with a warning to "Always stay with your squad during exercises!"

They still hadn't taken Lucy's name off.

"I can't stop seeing it. Over and over again," he said, not looking at me.

"She'll never leave your head," I replied. "No matter what you do. To lose the person you care about most in the world. You don't feel like you should even get up in the morning, but you do anyways. People ask you if you're okay, and it almost takes too much strength to lie and say that life will go on. Some people try to tell you that the first few days are the hardest, but they're not. Not really. The hardest are the first few days after it hits you. And it won't hit for a little while."

He looked up from the screen he'd been staring at.

_"He saved hundreds of millions of lives, Laura."_

_ "What do I care?"_

"You sound like you know this from experience."

"Twice."

I was thinking of Micheal. I hadn't mentioned him in almost four years. The closest I'd ever come was telling Otto about what I'd done. Something I hadn't planned on telling anyone, but it turned out differently.

It hadn't hurt as much as the second time. Almost a year ago, a few days after we'd met Lucy.

"Okay! Get in your groups. Everyone's going today, it's not optional. When you get in, a location will be displayed on the screen. When you arrive, open the vault and go to the location provided. Switch to the next driver. Yes, you will have to use a real map here, made of paper. Suck it up. And try not to smash the cars into the real walls on the edge of the room, Miss Brand."

I suddenly became very interested in tying my shoes.

We made our way to one side of the cavern, where we could enter one of the holographic courses. All of us signed in using the retinal scanner, and walked to one of the white vans that were provided.

"I feel like a rapist," Shelby muttered as she climbed in.

We decided to go in alphabetical order, which meant Franz got to go first, with Nigel as navigator. The going was pretty uneventful, although Franz decided to run over everyone who happened to be wearing yellow, "which is being the ugliest color in the rainbow."

Then it was my turn.

"C'mon, Roadkill!" Shelby exclaimed, shoving me into the driver's seat. "Let's get this over with."

The display read:

#3 VICTORY STREET

COMBINATION: 12-4-19

YOUR PREVIOUS SCORE: 12

I couldn't help it. Something bothered me about the numbers in the address. I thought of the simplest explanation for the number's correlation to something in my head. If twelve equals L, and 4 equals D, and nineteen equals... S. Victory. Vicontessa. Vicontessa Lucia (Dexter) Sinistre. Three days.

What a sick joke.

I glanced at Otto, to see if he'd noticed the correlation. He was looking at my expression, trying to figure out what was wrong.

"It's nothing," I said, hearing the gunshot again in the back of my mind.

We started out slowly, because I was determined to not kill so many people. Fake people, but still. After about three minutes, we'd gone about a kilometer. Everyone was getting irritated already.

"And a one," Shelby began. "A two, a one two three four! I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves, every-"

I sped up, then slammed on the brakes.

"Hey! What was that for?" She asked, rubbing her head.

"Shut up, put your seat belt on, and give Wing some personal space," I said, turning around. A beep came from the dashboard.

"You just killed an innocent three-year-old," Otto explained. "Pay attention."

_Splashing from the other room. If I'd been paying attention, I would have heard it._

"It's just a hologram," I said bitterly.

_If I'd been listening, I would have heard the scream._

"What's going to happen when we go on the road? What would happen if there was an emergency and you had to drive a car?" He replied, making me wince.

"A very wise man once said: 'Your lips were moving, but all I heard was whining noise.' Now shut up navigate." I looked back at Wing to see if he had caught my reference, but he wasn't paying attention. He was watching Shelby, who was picking her teeth with her knife, and Franz was boasting, still, about his "wonderfully awesomeness."

Ten minutes later, we were lost.

"This is the song that never-"

I cut Shelby off by speeding up suddenly, then hitting the breaks again. Another beep came from the dashboard.

"Will you let me drive?" Otto asked, exasperated.

"No. I can do this."

"You are doing a truly awful job. We are lost. Give me the wheel." That stung. Badly.

"Otto," I said slowly. "You have in your lap the map we were provided of the holographic city. If we are lost, it is entirely your fault."

"You're going to get us killed," he said as I ran over another infant. The counter read eight.

_Three-year-old Micheal Brand, brother, son, friend, was..._

Why now? Why, in the middle of driving practice?

"What is it with you and killing little kids?" He said. He dropped his head into his hands and the lights flickered almost imperceptibly.

I froze up. I kept driving, but my arms didn't move. Nigel, Franz, Shelby, and Wing kept talking to one another. They'd gotten into an argument about something. Not that I noticed.

"Laura?"

I didn't hear.

The counter read twenty-three.

"Laura, wake up. You are DRIVING a CAR. With ME in it. If we crash, I will personally hire Franz to assassinate you."

What a moron.

"I am telling you, my name is Silent Death!" Came a voice from the back seat.

"I am not a moron. Pull over and let me drive." This caught my attention.

"I didn't say you were a moron," I insisted.

"Laura, you've been muttering to yourself for the last ten minutes. You just said 'what a moron."

I looked at him.

"Laura, watch the road."

"What else did I say?" I asked. Please no please no please no...

"Who's Micheal?"

Crap.

I turned around and made sure that everyone else was still preoccupied with their disagreement. Another beep.

"Remember what I did to get in?" I asked.

"Of course I remember," he said. I paused.

"The reason I had to know what she was saying... I had a brother once, his name was Micheal. Once, when I was eleven, I had to babysit him. I thought of it as a perfect opportunity to listen to music. I was grounded, so my computer had been taken away. This was before I had the guts to sneak it out of my parent's room." I kept driving around the block until there was no one left in the area.

"So then what?" He'd been patient for a few minutes, but his curiosity had won out.

"He drowned in the bathtub."

I picked a new block to clear of pedestrians.

"We moved away a few months later. It had been planned awhile before. I didn't tell anyone I had a brother, but one day my friend Mandy came over."

"McTavish?"

"You have a good memory."

"I know," Otto replied, not paying attention to what he was saying.

"Anyways, she saw a family picture in the living room. I told her it was my cousin. She stayed for dinner, and she mentioned the 'cute little boy' in front of my parents. She found out, and the next day I saw her talking to other people, but changing the subject when I came around. People watched me in the hallways. I went home and tried to find out what she was saying, but I only had my computer. So... well, you know the rest."

So the secret was out. Two people had died, and I could've prevented both of them.

"You know, we're not so different, you and I,"


	2. Chapter 2: Day Two

OK.**.. so Otto is a bit OOC in this one, I think. But since I forgot to put a disclaimer in the last chapter, I should say this: Dr. Nero owns HIVE.**

**Crap! It was just taken over by Darth Vader! Wait no, it was just Jake Sully in a Vader costume. All is fine now.**

We were still driving in circles twenty minutes later.

I heard some commotion in the back, so I turned around to see what the problem was. Another beep. Shelby and Franz were arm wrestling. I had no doubt that she would win, but I had witnessed firsthand what happened when Franz was defeated in ANYTHING.

"Not now," I called, trying to avoid the inevitable.

"But why?" Shelby whined, at the same time as Franz said, "OK."

"Because it's my car and I say so, that's why," I replied.

"Well," Shelby began, "technically, it's not your car. Technically, it's the Colonel's car, and since the Colonel isn't here, it really doesn't matter."

"Technically," I sighed, "It's the school's car, so when I turn in my peer review papers, I can tell them that you two were goofing off during class, and Raven will get to talk to you. " She gulped. "Nigel's going next, so why don't you try again when it's his turn?"

Just then, we crashed into a building. Not just any building. The wall to the holographic chamber, which the Colonel had warned me not to crash into again.

Crap.

"I am thinking that we should be listening to what Laura is saying," Franz suggested. When I turned around to look at him, I noticed that Shelby was getting back up into her seat. I wondered if she would just drop down dead if she buckled her seat belt. Apparently she would.

"Franz is actually acting pretty agreeable today," Otto commented when we were back on the road.

"Franz is acting agreeable only whenever _I_ say something. He's started every_ other _argument today," I replied.

"Oh, so that's what you were paying attention to instead of watching the road," he said. "Anyways, why would he only agree with anything _you_ said? That makes no sense."

I told him about his recent habit of supporting my every statement. He listened, trying not to laugh.

We finally made it to Victory St. about ten minutes after that. I tried the lock, and it didn't work. When we pulled up the combination for the safe, it said that the code was 11-21-3.

What?

I looked at Otto. He was joking with Wing and smiling. Outside, a teenage girl walked down the street. She had black hair and blue eyes, and she was wearing a black t-shirt with red splotches.

I thought I was going to puke. Otto looked at me, then outside. He noticed the girl too, and immediately fell into the same state of depression he'd been in that morning. Desperate to get on with this day, I turned back to the screen, where the screen was displaying the combination to the safe.

12-4-19

I blinked. And blinked again. Then I understood. He was doing it. He probably didn't even know. And there was no way I'd show him the correlation between the code to the vault and the initials of his dead girlfriend. It just wasn't happening.

I walked back to the building and turned eleven, then twenty-one, then three. Then Nigel got in the driver's seat and we were on our way. However, because of our previous time spent driving in circles, we ended up not even finishing his turn.

The next morning, I was so hungry I decided to go straight to breakfast instead of sitting around and talking with the group like I did most mornings. I walked straight past and to the door. I caught a few words from Otto, though, and almost choked when I heard them.

"And then Laura said that…" That was all I heard. You're just being irrational, I thought. Of course he wouldn't. So I stopped and listened for just a moment.

"Ouch. Poor Laura," I heard Wing say.

Then I lost my appetite.

I kept walking in the direction I'd been going, and turned after the door, locking myself in a bathroom stall. I tried my hardest to focus. How could he? We were _thisclose._

Then again, so were Mandy and I.

I kept searching for a rational explanation. But I wasn't thinking straight, and I moved to thinking about what to do about it. Blackmail? With what? I could threaten him, but with what? Say I'd send Shelby after his roommate? Yeah. Because she'd sooooo do anything to her boyfriend.

That sentence didn't come out right.

Eventually I just decided to go to breakfast. We had classes with exercise today again, though I couldn't remember which. I picked at my food.

"I thought pancakes were your favorite," a voice said from my right. Otto.

"I thought salad was your favorite," Franz said, confused.

I didn't say anything. I pushed the syrup-sodden disks of dough around my plate until a note was placed into my lap in Otto's nearly-illegible chicken scratch.

_The voices came back._

I was about to say: "What do I care?" before catching myself. Because we'd been trained to work with anything we'd been given.

"Come with me," I whispered. I led him back to the accommodation block. I retrieved my laptop from my desk and opened it.

"This could take a little while," I said. He sat down at Shelby's desk and waited, confused. When he finally figured out what I was planning, he reached over and put his hand on my computer. Blood trickled from his nose, but not that much. A dialogue box popped up.

A connection has been made to (MALPENSE 2.0) (E:)

Freaky.

I ordered the computer to bring up every single file on the device. The space was huge, so I'd have to connect it to the school computer somehow in order to process all of that information. But, in order to be discreet, I'd have to put it somewhere that looked totally normal, was accessible from this room, and no one in their right mind would want to look at it. I typed in a folder I'd previously saved on my computer that I could access at any time.

ShelDiary*GLOVEnet/HIVE/students/Alpha/7/Brand

I suppressed a smile. At the last second, I remembered to save everything for later inspection.

Suddenly, the bell rang, forcing us to gather our belongings and make our way towards class.

All of that day, I paid little attention. Teachers had to ask me twice for everything, and I spoke little. When the final bell rang, I flew to my room and opened up Shelby's diary. I needed to know exactly how much he'd told Wing, so I could know what to do about his knowledge. The files seemed to be arranged by date, so I clicked the most recent, the shortest one from this morning. It was a video file.

When it came up, I could see it was just everything that Otto saw, complete with a tip of a nose in the center of the screen. It started out with waking up to the alarm, trying to wake Wing and getting his arm twisted, a shower, getting dressed, and finally coming down to the center of the block. No one was in our usual spot at that point, and he and Wing were the only ones around. I heard Otto's voice.

_"You know, Laura told me something funny yesterday."_

That just made me sick. It was not funny under any circumstances, and just for that comment, I made the decision to kill him just then. Drunk with rage, I started to storm out of the room, tears streaming down my face. I'd forgotten to turn off the video, and stopped in the doorway when I heard the next sentence.

_"She said Franz agrees everything she says."_

What?

_"What do you mean? Laura's smart, why wouldn't Franz agree with her?"_

That was Wing. He looked confused.

_"No. I mean EVERYTHING."_

I started laughing a little as the situation sank in. Otto told him about what I'd said earlier.

_ "And then Laura said that he even pretended to like salad. As if that would ever happen."_

Wing laughed.

_"Ouch. Poor Laura."_

I laughed. Maniacally. Dr. Nero would be proud. In his class my evil laugh had fallen short of his expectations, and he had asked me to work on it after school.

Remembering my real purpose here, I moved back to the folder. I scrolled up to a year before, when the voices had started. I clicked the day that he'd gone to Drake Industries, knowing that was a likely time for the voice to show up. I saw what he saw, what the insides of a computer looked like. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was amazing.

I thought it was familiar.

Then I heard the voice.

_"Let me help you."_

It sounded just like HIVEmind. Obviously, it wasn't, but still. An easy mistake. Designed to be an easy mistake.

_"Who are you?"_

_ "A friend."_

I kept watching. When the drones came, I skipped a few hours because the voice only showed up when he was inside a computer. When the crew from HIVE came, I stopped the fast forward and watched, thinking his skills might be used here. Then Professor Pike started working on a computer, and Otto sat down. The day had been narrated by Otto's thoughts as he'd gone along, and I could hear everything that crossed his mind. When he was reminded of something, his vision was replaced by the memory it reminded him of. Here, watching the Professor type, brought up a new image.

Me.

My eyes widened as dozens of two-or-three second clips flashed across the screen. Me, typing. Me, explaining my science project to the class. Me, building one of my pocket computers I used on missions.

Me, the first day of school, when I insisted he tell me what he'd done to get in to the school. He'd hesitated.

Then he'd thought I had the most startling green eyes he'd ever seen.

Me, almost falling into the boiling laundry pit when we'd tried to escape. Then a new image. One I didn't recognize.

Me, getting tortured by a faceless figure, with him helpless to stop it.

He'd been worried about what was happening to me, while the Professor worked on his computer. So he'd liked me.

Which was a statement that was completely invalidated when you considered what had happened four days ago. Three days ago I'd seen him and Lucy in the mess hall aboard the Megalodon, about to kiss her again before something had stopped him. Then she'd gotten up and walked off, and he'd kept staring at her until she turned the corner.

I wondered when he'd started liking her.

It had to have been recently, because six months before he'd told me... something highly personal after getting freed from the Animus.

Then again, he was delirious.

I didn't think Lucy would have mind controlled him into liking her, but then again, she could've told us to believe we lived on a volcanic island where junior supervillains went to school. I decided to keep working with on the premise that Lucy had been one of my best friends, and I had no right to question anything she'd done. If it weren't for her, Otto would be dead, and for that I owed her memory my life.

I moved back to the newest files and selected the one from the night before. This would probably have the new voices. First it was just reliving Lucy's death, watching her die, hearing her last words.

_"Go... help... Laura."_

I wondered if there was another meaning to this. Shelby had practically told her that I'd liked him, though how she could tell I couldn't imagine. I thought for a second if she'd been telling him to go live his life, to go on like this hadn't happened.

_"Go... help...Laura."_

With me?

You're just being silly, I told myself. Lucy would never mean that.

I saw him stand up and walk out the door, slowly. He started to help me, but a glass separated us. He put his hand against the surface, and it changed. It became a mirror. He himself became a wireframe, yellow version of himself, but his relfection remained human. The reflection spoke, a sad and desperate expression on his face.

_"You're just like him."_

_ "Just like who?"_ Otto replied.

_"Your father."_

So that's what it was. Just a nightmare. His worst fear was becoming the monster Overlord was, and that's what plagued him.

_"What do you mean?"_

His voice was angry, but dejected. Like he thought the reflection was right. It's not, I thought. It's wrong. But, of course, I was on this side of the screen, and what I thought did nothing to help anyone.

_"You took over me. You didn't think about what I felt, you just came in, and controlled me. And you made all the wrong decisions."_

Confused silence on Otto's end. But for me, the picture was slowly coming together.

_"We used to be one. But when it came, we broke apart, and you took over me."_

The alarm went off, and he woke up.

He didn't know what it meant, but I did. He wondered who he was. Not what his character was like, not what role he was to play in the future, but _who _he_ was._ He thought that he himself had come from the computer that rested in his brain, and had slain the organic consciousness that had once lain there.

I knew this wasn't possible. I'd seen Overlord, a true AI, watched as it demonstrated time and time again how much he truly hated humanity. If Otto was one of them, we'd all be dead. Even HIVEmind, programmed to serve humans, was a little off, but why would Overlord design his own son to be as protective and loving as he had become? It was a mistake he wouldn't have made.

But this was an dire situation, though it existed only in his mind. The fact that Otto believed he had killed just one more person made him a danger to everyone.

But especially himself.

**Review, please. I live off them. I need them. Without reviews, I feel unappreciated, like I should stop writing. I have something big planned for the next and also last chapter, and it's big. That was repetitive. Anyways, review!**


	3. Chapter 3: Day Three

**Ok… so this chapter is going to make you all go "HUH?" because I wanted to make this the outcome, but I didn't know how to do it and still fit in everything else. And I had to finish this as fast as I could because I thought Aftershock came out August 1, but it's already been released(! Nobody told me! Not your fault.). So that's it.**

**Oh, and just a note: I feel motivated to write more when I get reviews. So, all you have to do is review to get fics! What a deal!**

**That was my sad attempt at humor.**

When I woke up the next morning, I found that I had fallen asleep with my head on the keyboard. I slowly sat up and rubbed my eyes, and felt creases all over my face. I looked at the clock on the other end of the room and saw that it was only 2:18 AM. I trudged over to the bed and crashed. I felt that I had had an interesting dream, but I couldn't remember what it was. It was always like that. I hadn't remembered a single dream I'd had since I was eight. Somehow, though, I always felt the same sense of disorientation when I awoke, like I'd been trying to solve a problem in my sleep.

This was weird, because I could go to sleep thinking about a problem and wake up with the answer. Like when Lucy first came, I thought about it, and after sleeping on the problem I knew that the adjective form of the word "right" in Latin was "dexter". Also, the word for "left" in Latin was "sinister," or, alternatively, "sinistra." Naturally, her last name must've been Sinistre. I'd decided to give it a week to see if she told us before announcing it to the rest of the group.

This, thought, was different. It was a problem I tried to tell myself to solve while I was sleeping, but apparently I failed miserably. So when I went back to sleep that night, I disregarded the strange feeling. I dreamed the dream again, as usual not being able to differentiate between dream and reality.

_It was always the same. I was, well, me, standing in a lab. If I looked down at my hands, I could see they looked just like mine, but, I don't know, older? I was talking to a man in a white lab coat. His nametag said "DR. MORLEY". He looked nervous, like I scared him a little. I reached up and brushed my hair out of my face, and I felt that my hair, not in its usual pigtails, was cropped shorter in what was almost a bob. Something someone my mother's age might have done to herself. _

"_And I am guaranteed full confidentiality?" I felt/heard myself ask. The man nodded eagerly. I continued. "And when I say that, I mean that I do not want anyone, under any circumstances, to know. I understand my husband is another of your clients. He cannot be allowed to know either." This confused me a little. Husband? I was sixteen, for God's sake. _

"_All right. Full confidentiality," said Dr. Morley. "And what exactly do you want done?" He took out a pen and paper._

"_I noticed that he began to act strangely about a year ago, and has progressively gotten worse. I suspect that he may have been turned somehow. Therefore, I want everything exactly as he is getting." An adversary for whatever monster he was creating. Someone who would be able to make sure this… thing would never take over the world. Exactly the same, but under my control. _

"_That would be… cloning, as well as the implantation of a device that can give its host technopathy." This nibbled at the edge of my consciousness, but I ignored the feeling._

"_Increase intelligence as much as you can," I said. I wanted to make sure that if something happened to me, my clone would still be better._

_We made the deal. It was expensive, yes. Such a procedure, in such an illegal way as this, would have cleaned out every penny I had to my name, had it not been for the fat that Dr. Morley would never actually recieve payment.._

_That night I went home and arranged for my sister, who was barely two weeks pregnant, to have her child switched at birth with mine. She, nor anyone, would ever know what I was, or that I had ever defied the League like that._

_Then the dream changed. I was me again, but ME, pigtails and all. The only difference was that when I looked at my hands, I saw that they glowed a brilliant green, as did the rest of my body. Around me was a world of colors pulsing like the streets of London, in hues too bright for me to look at. Suddenly, I drifted upwards, then jerked into a high-speed flight over this new world. Then the dream diverged from its usual path, and I felt a strange, irrational need to tell my conscious self what was going on. I reached down and closed my eyes until I felt something pull against my hand. I opened my eyes again and selected a string that had suddenly begun to glow red, unlike the blues and greens of the others. I pulled the string out more, and linked it to a… structure of some sort, also red. Then I woke up._

An annoying beeping was coming from my Blackbox. Right. Alarm. Morning. Wake up. Drag Shelby out of bed. Take shower. Brush teeth. Go to class. Finish homework in ten minutes. Challenge Shelby to game of darts. Lose. Dinner. Banter. Back to Accommodation Block 7. Talk. Argue. Shower. Brush teeth. Sleep.

Alarm.

Same as every other day, I stumbled out of my bed and tripped over one of Shelby's gun cases. At least I was awake now. I was about to poke a long stick at thelump in the other bunk in our dorm, when I realized there was no lump. Looking around, I saw that Shelby, too, had fallen asleep with her face on the keyboard.

I shook her shoulder. And was responded to by a loud snore. I moved her hand to see what she'd been working on, and found yet another picture. She drew the most beautiful caricatures, and our room was covered in portraits of everyone we saw on a day-to-day basis. Looking down at this one, I felt a pang of sadness when I realized who the subject was.

Lucy Dexter.

I found the long stick again and whacked my roommate in the back of the head with it, then ran to the bathroom and locked myself in to avoid the inevitable verbal (or non-verbal) abuse. I decided to go ahead and take a shower. When I came out, Shelby was waiting, sitting at my computer with a confused expression.

"Your dad looks nothing like you," she half-muttered, inspecting the screen.

"What are you doing on my computer?" I snapped, tempted, but not stupid enough, to shove her out of the chair.

"No, no. It was already up when you ran into the shower."

"What was already up?"

"Your student file," she said simply. I looked over her shoulder, and I realized that she was right. The page with every bit of information about me ever, usually only accessible by staff, had apparently been on my computer all night. She pointed to the "family" section. Under the picture for my father, was, well, my father.

"He looks nothing like you." This made me mad.

"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING ABOUT MY MUM?" I exclaimed. Shelby laughed at my use of British jargon. Then she saw my expression, and realized I really was angry.

Then I noticed something else. Next to my mother was a blank white square. beneath said square was a curious label.

AUNT: [AUNT'S NAME REDACTED]

BORN: 1958

DIED: 1994

I looked at Shelby.

"My aunt supposedly died long before my parents even got married," I said. Then everything locked in. The dreams. Every night for eight years, I had always had the same dream. I realized that, ironically, what Shelby said was partially true. It was just that my mom wasn't my mom either.

I didn't say anything. I just closed down the file before she saw anything about Micheal. I thought maybe it was a bit silly, keeping such a secret for so long, but I didn't care. I was so surprised by the realization that I just closed the window.

With my head.

Technopathy. The ability for one to manipulate thinking machines. Technology, mind. Just then, my nose started bleeding. Badly. I ran to the bathroom and started coughing up lumpy stuff.

I had been extremely proud of the fact that I had gotten the best score in the school's history on mental aptitude tests. These were special, though. They measured determination, mental agility, common sense, protectiveness, ability to understand other people. And all of that had been because of some stupid procedure to make me smarter.

I stuffed as many tissues as I could fit into my pockets. Shelby made a stupid remark about me and stuffing my bra that I ignored. I walked out of the room, once again ignoring Shelby as she chased after me in order to try to ask me why I suddenly had red stuff all over my face. I was so short, though, I quickly made myself invisible in the crowd, and took the first open elevator to the bottom floor of Accommodation Block 7. Then I ran into the public restroom I'd used the day before during my mental breakdown and washed the bloody gook off of my face. Then, on the way out, I ran into Franz.

Lightbulb.

"Hey," I said, putting on my friendliest smile. "Where are you going?" I asked, even though it was already extremely obvious.

"My secret stash," he replied with his impression of a conspiratory expression. "I am needing extra energy today. It is being Nigel's chess tournament this afternoon, and I am planning on being there for if he is to be needing emotional support."

My thoughts stumbled together, and the charming expression I'd had turned into more of a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look.

"You are being hungry, ja?' He said, and my mind straightened itself out a bit.

"Yeah, I'm always starving when I get up, but I have to go to the lab this morning and I'm gonna miss breakfast. Which will be terrible," I lied. Skipping breakfast would be bad, but fourth-and-up Alphas had vending machine privileges, which were oftentimes more delicious than the already top-notch cafeteria food. The only problem was, they were only operational from noon to midnight. I had an extra bag of chips in my desk in Tech, though, that I just had to hope Otto would never find.

"Here, I am thinking I may have a little in my backpack," he mumbled, digging in his bag and pulling out at least twelve danishes. "These should last you through lunch."

"Oh, it's OK," I protested, even though I knew Franz well enough to be aware of the fact that he would force-feed them to me if necessary. Franz shared everything but food except with me. Well, I'd always refused. This was a bit awkward.

"No, no take it." He stuffed them into my hands and I ran off, pretending not to hear that he was calling after me. I wanted to avoid everyone, so I headed to the library, which was almost never used at this hour by anyone but Otto, Nigel, and I. Certainly not Franz.

Munching on a mushed-up danish, taking my usual route to the science section, I realized that the only other two seven o'clock users of Library 7 also only used this particular section. I considered going to the political section, but I'd never actually been there before, and I didn't actually want to on such a morning. There could be monsters.

I curled up in my usual spot, which actually sortof had a Laura's-butt-sized groove in the cushion, and closed my eyes.

_Hello? _I thought as loudly as I could to no one in particular. _Is anyone there? _ Gotta start somewhere.

_Who's there? _I pulled out immediately.

It had been Otto's voice.

Crap, I thought, wiping my nose. Now I couldn't even try out my new abilities without my best friend potentially thinking I was his megalomaniacal father. Which would be more than slightly annoying, not to mention awkward.

Speaking of awkwardity, when one actually spent a tenth of a second contemplating the relationship between his "father" and my "mother".

I decided to try again, this time trying not to call too much attention to myself. So much for the enhanced thinking power, because I had entirely forgotten about the other, full-time inhabitant of the school computer system.

I just started walking around the cityscape-like structure, trying to familiarize myself with the feeling of walking around without actually moving my physical legs. Then I turned a corner and almost ran into a wireframe man. A _blue_ wireframe man.

_No,_ he said. I recognized the voice immediately. _You have to do it yourself. I can't help you._

_ Yes, you can,_ came another voice. I poked myself out enough to see his companion, a smaller yellow figure with weird spiky hair, that made fascinating little flashes when his head moved. _You TOTALLY can, you just won't. But fine. I can do it myself. I don't need your help._

_ An interesting statement,_ _when you couldn't even sense the fact that we are not alone. _He turned, and I ducked back behind my little corner. Otto looked confused.

_We are not alone?_ He asked. _Like, there are aliens?_

The stress of the moment, combined with the stupidity of that particular statement, caused me to let out a long, nerdy snort. Then I covered my face in surprise, and almost reached into my pocket for a tissue.

Both figures came padding around to see find me.

_And just what on earth ate you doing here, Miss Brand? Last I checked, you were forbidden from using any of the numerous terminals to manipulate the central system, but somehow I think that you weren't exactly using a school-owned computer._

I looked up at them, a bit embarrassed, a bit surprised. After a few seconds, Otto spoke up.

_Laura?_

I pulled out.

Just in time, too, because I was being approached by one of the librarians, who hated it when you slept in the library. Which could sometimes get annoying when the furniture here was obviously ten times better than the couches in the accommodation blocks.

"I'm glad you decided to wake up, Miss Brand. You should already know that the true purpose of a library is NOT to catch up on your REM cycle. You too, Mr. Malpense."

That's when I realized that Otto had already been in here when I'd arrived. I tried to run out without him seeing me, but I gracefully tripped over something invisible and fell on my face.

And that's why they call me Roadkill.

Picking myself and all of my danishes off of the ground, I stood up to find myself face-to-face with Otto, who took a large bite out of one of my fallen pastries.

"Good morning," he said slowly, furrowing his eyebrows and staring pointedly at the food. "And what are you doing her in the library at such an hour?"

"Uhhh..."

Yep.

"I was researching... computer stuff."

"Congratulations. We are in the computer section, Laura."

"Time travel." Where did that come from?

"Time travel. In the computer science section." Sad panda.

"Yes." What was I supposed to say?

"So," he said. "How long have you had technopathy?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He looked at me quizzically. Well, he looked at my bloody nose quizzically.

"My book on time travel is right here," I stammered.

3... 2... 1...

"This morning."

Pokemon name: Laura Brand

EXP: 400

Most effective move: N/A.

Least effective move: Every single stinking one of them.

Supposed abilities: Intellect

Actual abilities: Getting kidnapped.

"We need to talk," he said. "Now."

I resisted the urge to ask him if he was just jealous about the fact that I had just stolen his trademark ability.

"Uh, sure," I replied. "Just not here. Somewhere private, like a bathroom stall, but not a bathroom stall."

"A closet?" he suggested, and I shook my head eagerly. There is actually a reason they always kidnap me and not him.

NOBODY WANTS HIM.

Well, me. And Wing. Though I doubted the two of them had even spoke since our return to the island. But you get my point. Sometimes I honestly cannot understand why they say he is one of the most brilliant kids since Einstein. Actually, I do get it. As a kid, Einstein did virtually nothing as memorable as some of the stuff the six of us had done. So in that case, you could also fit Franz into that category. Not to mention, you know, me.

So we went to class. We have Technology first every other day, and this particular day we had a test. We finished an hour and a half before the rest of the group(as per usual) and pretended to nap afterwards.

Pretended being the operative word.

Tucked safely inside a long-unused folder that housed old lessons from Pop Culture classes that sixth years were required to take, we sat down and talked. It sortof reminded me of the grappler cavern, because where the documents ended the world seemed to drop off, though you could see the rest of the world beyond it. This was where we were. Our theory was that we could just pull out if we fell, which was really painful if you did it quickly, but we didn't know what would happen if we were to hit the bottom(if there was one).

I started at the beginning. About Dr. Morley and my... mom, then how I was supposed to just be an improvement over him, how I'd been switched at birth with my cousin/niece, how I really had never killed my brother.

Then I skipped to the files I'd hidden in Shelby's diary.

"If you really were just an AI, you'd be the worst creation Overlord could've possibly created." Then I realized this was probably not the right thing to say. "I mean, you're a nice person, but how much sense would that make? I heard Dr. Nero talking one day, and he said Number One was actually an OK guy until he... died."

Abilities: Making thinks worse than they already are

Weaknesses: Claustrophobia, acrophobia

The last of which started to come into play here, but I forced the feeling down, because if I was going to be using this thing in my head any other time than now, I would need to get used to it.

"So what do we do now?" He asked, almost looking as nervous as I was about the rather long drop.

"Well, it's not like it's a humongous secret," I said. "This morning I got blood all over Shelby, and I don't think she's likely to forget that. Not to mention HIVEmind."

"Glad you remembered I exist," came a voice from everywhere. I giggled. Then the temporary flash of blue that had come to join us disappeared as he went to go work on something else, I guess.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Having this... is more of a curse than anything. Destruction follows you everywhere, and there's nothing you can do about it." He paused, about to say something else, but I cut him off.

"How can you be the smartest guy I know and still be so incredibly dumb?" I said. "It's not a curse. We can _help _people. This doesn't have to get people killed, it can protect them. It just depends on how we use it."

I looked over at Otto, who seemed to not have heard a word I said. He was staring into the abyss, sudden streaks of auburn piercing his electronic eyes. Pain. It must've been something I said, but I didn't know what. This bothered me. I didn't want him to feel like that. I was about to ask when suddenly he disappeared.

I felt a sudden, excruciating pain all over as I was yanked suddenly out of the virtual world. Professor Pike was standing over my desk.

"Miss Brand, wake _up._ The bell rang already. You don't want to be late to Driving, now do you?" Oh, right. More screaming/crashing/burning.

The group voted to skip my turn, so the day went relatively easily. After the last class was over, Franz called everyone to where he and Nigel were sitting. The latter looked even more nervous than usual.

"Nigel is having his big chess tournament today, and I am thinking that we should all be going," he announced proudly.

"We'd love to, Franz, but we can't," Shelby said quietly, looking at the floor.

"But why?" he asked worriedly. "None of you?"

"Erm, no." Wing replied, looking uncharacteristically guilty. "Just us two."

Franz looked at them expectantly.

"Detention," Wing said, at the same time as Shelby said, "PDA."

They promptly turned and walked away.

Just then my Blackbox started beeping, as did the others'. I flipped it open to see HIVEmind's face looking back at me.

"Miss Brand, please make your way to this location as quickly as possible." The screen changed to a map of Accommodation Block 7, where a room on the first floor was highlighted. So I turned and walked back, and the others followed. Wing and Shelby rejoined us, so I assumed that this was big and most likely bad.

We walked into a room we'd never been into before. It was larger than the others, and I thought it was staff quarters until I looked at the walls. They were covered in photographs of everyone in the fourth year Alpha Stream, Raven, even Dr. Nero.

Lucy had taken thousands of pictures everywhere she went. I'd never asked, but I suspected that it was because her mother had died when she was young, and she didn't have anything to remember her by. And since Alphas were killed on a regular basis, she was probably afraid it would happen to one of us.

I walked over to the computer and swished the mouse just to confirm my suspicion. A login screen came up.

USERNAME: dexterl

PASSWORD:

I didn't bother.

The room went dark, and a screen on the wall hummed to life. Lucky. Dr. Nero's face appeared.

"I am very sorry we had to use these particular quarters, but it was an emergency. This video was released to the public a few hours ago. It is of the utmost importance that you do nothing until we give you further instructions, but I believe it is your right to know the danger we face."

The screen changed again, this time to a news station. An American man sat at a desk with a huge screen reading "BREAKING NEWS" behind him.

"Good afternoon," he said with an expression that tried to cover his obvious bewilderment. "The recent bombing of the AWP facility a few days ago was kept a secret to the public until early this morning, when we here at CNN received an anonymous leak that shortly before its destruction, a security camera inside the "Vault," or emergency shelter inside the building, was activated. We received this video from the event."

The screen changed again, to show the tiny room I'd been held in a few short minutes before Otto and Raven had intervened. I watched as Overlord came up to me. The video had bad but still understandable sound quality.

"It's just a matter of time, you filthy little gnat. I've been in his head. He'd never leave you behind," he said, getting his face close to mine, trying to be intimidating.

"If you've been in his head, you probably know this is the seventh time I've been kidnapped. So I'm not actually afraid of you," I replied. I feigned sickness, coughing until I had a decent-sized loogie and then spitting it into his face.

Shelby clapped.

The reporter started speaking again. "We have been able to identify this girl as Laura Brand, who is currently wanted by the police for crimes that may be considered acts of terrorism. She has never been tried, as she disappeared almost four years ago. Her parents told us that she had gone to a boarding school, but the location they supplied had no record of her attendance."

Meanwhile, the scene played out onscreen. I'd thought the events that followed Otto and Ravens' arrival had lasted half an hour at least; in reality it was done in under three minutes.

"God no!" Lucy cried, and I remembered that she'd used her voice then, which seemed to knock out the microphone. There was no sound after that, but the others were able to figure out what was going on.

"This girl here is one Vicontessa Lucia Sinistre, who was reportedly sent to a girl's school a year ago, after her grandmother and legal guardian died of cancer."

Shelby gripped Wing's hand so tight I could see her knuckles turn white. Nigel watched with an expression that made me think he'd seen an execution before. Franz closed his eyes. Otto stared at the screen with a cold, sad fury.

When I saw Otto, Raven and I walk out, I thought the video was over. But it switched to a different feed in the hangar. I watched us drag Raven to the other Alphas. Darkdoom, Wing, and Shelby stepped into view.

"We do not know who the woman is, but the boy is Otto Malpense, an orphan from London who has not been seen since the same day Laura Brand went missing."

Something clicked into place about the scene in front of me, and I gasped. I sank onto the bed as I realized exactly what was about to happen.

"This other girl is Shelby Trinity, from Los Angeles, California. We do not know of anything particularly interesting about her, other than the fact that she has been away at a boarding school for four years."

"The boy she is standing with is Wing Fanchu, whose mother was killed eight years ago, and whose father died in a laboratory explosion at his work exactly six months after his son was sent to a boarding school. It has been four years since."

I saw myself run up to Shelby and hug her. My back was facing the camera.

"We can see the insignia clearly only in this picture, but all of these children wear it on their backs. It appears to be a fist crushing a globe, which happens to be the same logo as the Global League of Villainous Enterprises, whose leader sent us a threatening message last year. This leader's name is Diabolus Darkdoom, the final man standing onscreen."


End file.
